It is the kind of explosive, high-stakes allegation that threatens to take down entire publishing houses: the claim that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was the key introducer who first presented Donald Trump to his future wife, Melania.
When this single, unverified sentence appeared in investigative author Andrew Lownie's biography of Prince Andrew, the reaction was immediate, decisive, and financially terrifying. The publishing world witnessed one of the fastest and most comprehensive retractions in recent memory, all thanks to the threat of a potential 'billion-dollar lawsuit' from the former First Lady.
The author, Lownie, is famous for his unflinching portraits of controversial figures, and his latest work, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, focuses primarily on the sordid life and financial incontinence of Prince Andrew.
It is a book already 'packed full of revelations', chronicling the disgraced royal's enduring relationship with Epstein—a connection Lownie suggests began 'earlier, continued longer and were much more frequent than reported'. Yet, it was a tangential detail buried within the text that sparked the most intense controversy across the Atlantic.
The original copies of Entitled—an estimated 60,000 copies that first hit shelves—included a claim that Epstein introduced Mr Trump and Melania at a New York party back in the 1990s. This stands in stark contrast to the widely reported and accepted narrative that the couple first met in September 1998 at a Fashion Week event, introduced by mutual friend Paolo Zampolli.
The Billion-Pound Legal Threat That Silenced Andrew Lownie's Claim
As soon as the allegation surfaced, the Trump legal team went on the offensive. Melania, who is 55, issued a thunderous threat of a 'billion-dollar lawsuit' against the book's publisher, HarperCollins UK, and against anyone else repeating the claim.
Crucially, this legal threat was issued shortly after Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, repeated the same allegation in a public interview, suggesting the Trump team was in a state of heightened vigilance regarding the claim.
The publisher swiftly capitulated. The entire run of printed books was immediately pulped, and the damaging passages were excised from all future editions, as well as the e-book and audiobook formats.
In a statement, the publisher confirmed their position: 'We have, in consultation with the author, removed passages of the book that referenced unverified claims about the First Lady of the United States Melania Trump'. This extraordinary act of self-censorship demonstrates the chilling power wielded by the former First Family and the sheer cost of fighting defamation suits, regardless of the publisher's confidence in its source material.
But Andrew Lownie is not backing down. The veteran author has forcefully maintained his conviction in the information. Speaking exclusively after the retraction, Lownie insisted he 'stands by the claims'.
'My source has proved to be reliable on everything he gave me, so I wouldn't have put it in if I didn't think it was true', Lownie explained. 'Everything was double-checked'.
The Tainted Triangle: What Links Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump?
The context surrounding the publisher's quick surrender is telling. For HarperCollins, the financial risk clearly outweighed the journalistic principle of fighting for the integrity of their author's work. Lownie himself was left slightly mystified by the haste of the decision, hinting that his publishers were simply frightened of the legal headache.
'It was one sentence in a 140,000-word book', Lownie noted, underscoring the minor nature of the detail in the grand scheme of the biography. 'They took it out just to avoid the nuisance of a lawsuit, and we haven't had another word since'.
This episode pulls into sharp relief the ongoing—and intensely sensitive—question of the relationship between Donald Trump and the late sex creep Jeffrey Epstein. While the former President has repeatedly distanced himself from the disgraced financier, he even issued a formal denial, stating: 'Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing.'
The mere suggestion that Epstein played a role in the most fundamental relationship of Trump's life, his marriage to Melania, remains explosive.
Though the passage has been physically removed from all future copies of Entitled, the threat of the 'billion-dollar lawsuit' has only succeeded in spotlighting the very claim it was designed to silence.
For Lownie, the integrity of his reliable source remains paramount. For the reading public, the question of exactly who introduced the Trumps—and why that detail is worth so much to conceal—has only become louder. The history books may have been edited, but the lingering suspicion certainly has not.
The swift, near-total erasure of a single sentence from Andrew Lownie's biography confirms one chilling reality: for powerful public figures like Donald Trump and Melania, a lawsuit threat—even an unproven one—is enough to rewrite published history.
The fact that a publisher would scrap 60,000 copies to avoid litigation over a claim linking the former First Lady's origin story to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein speaks volumes about the sensitivity and potential cost of this subject.
While Lownie stands firm on his 'reliable' source, the public is left with a void of accountability and a disturbing glimpse into the pressure applied to the media. The question is no longer what the source said, but why its denial demands a 'billion-dollar' silence.
